Heavy artillery fire and air strikes have continued in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, as the military battles to retake parts of the city from al-Qaeda linked fighters. The Al-Qaeda backed "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" has been tightening its grip in the Sunni dominated desert province, near the Syrian border where it hopes to create an Islamic state. Paul Rogers from the Oxford Research Group comments about how the group's rapidly expanding influence in the region has taken many by surprise.
